


first day of my life

by orphan_account



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:30:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Depression is a beast capable of tearing even the closest lovers apart. Yet, some manage to see dawn beyond the blackest night. (Axel/Roxas)</p>
            </blockquote>





	first day of my life

**Author's Note:**

> One of my better KH fics, I believe. Thanks to Lisa for proofreading.

remember the time you drove all night?  
just to meet me in the morning  
and i thought it was strange; you said everything changed  
you felt as if you'd just woke up   
and you said,  
"this is the first day of my life  
i'm glad i didn't die before i met you   
but now i don't care, i could go anywhere with you  
and i'd probably be happy"

bright eyes – first day of my life

 

When Axel came home from class that day, it was after half past six. He didn’t say hello to Roxas, vanishing into the bathroom instead. Tension rippling over him like ghostly hands pulling a thick blanket over his head, Roxas heard the water running, and kept his eyes trained on the TV, waiting. Axel eventually finished, stepped with wet hair bleeding on his shoulders into the living room and gave Roxas a tight smile and a quick “Hey.” Roxas watched Axel’s face carefully when the man sat down beside him, saw the ferocity in his eyes and the stern line of his mouth. Axel didn’t look into his eyes, had his fingers knotted together in his lap, white-knuckled grip trembling.

Roxas felt inept, helpless to Axel's soapy, warm smell; helpless to the idea of climbing onto Axel’s lap to kiss him, to feel the give of soft lips underneath his own. It was hard to remember the last time they’d touched, kissed. Roxas' eyes got stuck on Axel cutting his fingernails into the flesh of his palm. Axel's obvious need for silence was defeaning in its clarity. Swallowing, Roxas quickly looked back up to the television when Axel caught his gaze. An awkward pause later and Roxas' back was as stiff as a wodden plane when Axel got up, avoiding Roxas' eyes as he said he’d read a little, would be back soon.

Six hours later, Axel was still locked away, reading in the bedroom. His painful absence remained sitting beside Roxas.

Sometimes, Roxas wondered why Axel was with him at all. Right now he didn’t really feel like he made Axel happy. Rather than spend time with him, Axel would sit on the bed, sheets pulled up to his chin, hiding half of his face, holding up a book and reading it silently. Axel was very, very silent lately. The evenings found Roxas sitting alone in the living room, TV turned on to a high volume so Roxas could pretend the strong gears grinding his thoughts didn’t exist. Watching two hours of mindless bullshit, Roxas would turn off the TV not even knowing what he’d been watching, just having needed the noise and moving pictures and colour to force the darkness behind his eyes to stay blank. He’d brush his teeth, watch himself in the mirror and look at the rings under his eyes, the paleness of his flesh on his boyish frame, eyes darting to his skinny shoulders and the dirty appearance of his hair—and the thought hit him like a punch to the gut, insides contorting painfully. Of course Axel didn’t want him, couldn’t want him, when he looked the way he did.

Breathing in deeply before entering the bedroom, Roxas tried to calm his thoughts. He forced a smile onto his face and stood a little awkwardly in front of the bed, uncomfortable with the idea of joining Axel under the covers. Axel was focused on his book and Roxas didn’t want to intrude, felt like a stranger in his own apartment. His eyes were fixed onto Axel, who finally finished a page and raised his head to look at Roxas, mouth set in a neutral line, face betraying no emotion. “What’re you doing?” 

Roxas followed Axel’s eyes as they took in his naked upper body and before the image of his skinny shoulders and dirty hair could come up in his head, Roxas said loudly, trying to lighten the mood, “Waiting for you to invite me into your warm fortress.”

Axel snorted. “What kind of bullshit have you been watching? ‘Fortress’?”

Consulting his memory was no use; the last two hours were a blank. He shrugged half-heartedly, still not moving to climb into the bed. “Bullshit, just like you said.”

It didn’t feel very inviting, Axel’s eyes never leaving his own as he said, “Well come on in or you’re gonna catch a cold.”

Roxas felt cold already (only he didn’t know what kind of coldness this was) so he quickly pulled off his socks and slid under the covers, banishing the chant of stranger, stranger, stranger. He was being stupid again; there was no reason to feel like this. That’s what he told himself, what he’d been telling himself the last two hours, days, weeks, and probably months... (It was no use; the coldness covered his bones like a second layer.)

He watched Axel climb out of the bed to put the book away and when he came back, Roxas asked, incapable of standing the silence in his head any longer, “What are you reading at the moment anyway?”

Pulling the covers up to his chin, Axel turned his body towards Roxas’ and there was a beat of silence before he answered. When he did, there was a little grin on his face. Roxas' heart contracted at the sight. “A fucked up book. It’s about a cross-dressing boy who grows up wanting to be a prostitute.”

Knitting his eyebrows, Roxas laughed briefly. “The hell?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking at first. But it’s a really good book—the language is nice and even if the boy’s weird, he’s got his reasons.”

“He’d better have reasons or he’d be really fucked up.” Roxas smiled back, a little hesitantly, felt his heart beat slowly, trembling behind his ribcage like a broken bird’s wing. Axel seemed to be better now, was even talking to him. Maybe this would still be a good evening if he didn’t fuck up now.

“He does have reasons,” Axel said, bringing his left arm under his pillow to lie a little higher with his head. “And a big reason is his mother.”

Axel had that glint in his eyes and Roxas heard his own excitement as an instant rush of blood in his ears; Axel didn't seem to mind talking a little now. Roxas curled his fingers in the sheets and considered his words before he actually said them. It could go wrong but at least he’d tried. He was tired of what ifs.

“A sob story again?” His smirk was a little weak, a little cautious, but it was there. Begging to be noticed. “Never pegged you as the type to go for sob stories.”

“'S not a sob story.” Axel rolled his eyes. “It’s—“

“Virtually all stories in which the mother has to do with fucking up her child are sob stories, Axel,” Roxas interrupted him, grinning a little when he Axel’s face flushed. Axel was an avid reader and he loved books; having a book he loved insulted didn’t sit well with him. Roxas, on the other hand, loved to annoy Axel a little. “So don’t shit me.”

“I’m not shitting you.” Axel raised his eyes, sniffed haughtily. “But apparently it's your turn to be an ignorant jerk tonight.”

“Usually I’d say that to you, huh.” Roxas was having far too much fun at this. He’d have to watch out or he’d get lost in it and exaggerate. Just because Axel was talking to him now didn’t mean he was fine. Still, Roxas couldn’t stop himself—the actual blush on Axel’s face was far too nice. “Maybe a role-reversal isn’t so bad.”

Axel didn’t answer right away but the glint in his eyes turned to something else, something Roxas couldn’t identify. Tension drawing his skin tight, making it sensitive to the fabric of the blanket when he shifted, Roxas shivered and remained momentarily quiet. Maybe he’d gone too far already. When Axel moved, Roxas instantly felt a pang of fear that Axel was going to walk out of the bedroom and go to sleep on the couch—leave Roxas alone, offering no explanation. When he did that, he wanted to be left alone. But Axel didn’t move to leave; instead, he moved to push the blanket back and before Roxas could really comprehend it, Axel was straddling him, sitting on his stomach, leaning over him.

Roxas was at a loss for words.

“In fact, my dear Roxas, the boy reminds me of you,” Axel murmured. “He's got blond hair and blue eyes.”

Having Axel's thin face hovering so closely to his own, Roxas' mouth snapped shut. He felt his throat dry and something strung together so tight in his throat that it hurt. Wide-eyed, a sharp breath escaped him through his nostrils as he observed Axel's lids grow heavy, shutting half over slightly slanted eyes becoming a shade darker.

“He drives the men crazy when he's prancing 'round in lipstick and skirts,” Axel said lowly, tilting his head slowly to the side, hair falling sideways over his forehead, brushing Roxas' face, tickling him. “His mama doesn't like that at all.”

Roxas' heart began throbbing a hard, unforgiving staccato in his chest at the proximity of the other man. He unconsciously licked his lips as he observed the softly drawn cupid's bow of Axel's upper lip, the sharp cut of his cheekbones. The surrealism of the moment caught up with him when he felt the roughness of Axel's calluses brush against his bare shoulder and Roxas curled his fingers tightly into the sheets.

“I wouldn't mind that,” Roxas all but breathed and fought the urge of his twitching fingers to touch Axel. Roxas' mind couldn't supply any memories from when they had last touched, kissed. He had no time to feel pathetic about his overt excitement and nervousness, about their serious lack of intimacy. This moment right now was a temping taboo. Mind growing hazy, Roxas' toughts vanished slowly but gradually, eradicated with Axel as close as he hadn't been in a long time. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination but he thought Axel was staring at his lips when he licked them.

“I'm sure you wouldn't,” Axel muttered as he slightly dipped his head down, and Roxas' eyes fell shut and his hands cramped around their hold of the bedsheet. There was breath first, hot and moist against his lips. A sudden shock of anxiety electrified Roxas' chest, goose bumps shuddering over the skin of his arms. When he breathed in, he drew Axel's lips onto his.

Roxas had forgotten the exceptional softness of Axel's lips. They pressed flatly against his, stayed there briefly. It felt awkward and fragile, and Roxas was afraid if he moved he would break this cautious, desperately longed-for intimacy of the moment. So he very slowly opened his lips, felt Axel's slide off his and pressed forward with a tilt of his head. When his upper lip slid between Axel's lips and his lower lip closed around Axel's own, Roxas' fingers curled instinctively, nails scratching over the fabric of the sheet beneath. Axel pressed hesitantly back against him, and his fingers touched Roxas' shoulder, hand closing around it. The noise of rustling sheets was agonizingly loud in Roxas' ears as Axel shifted on his knees and exerted gentle, barely-there pressure with his hand on Roxas' shoulder. Roxas' eyes instantly snapped open and he stared up into Axel's dark, green eyes. His lips felt cold a moment later when Axel drew back, staring at the smaller man beneath him. They stayed like that for a long moment, gazes locked on one another. Then Roxas' eyes snapped to the sudden movement of Axel's hands, and he stared at them coming to his shoulders.

There was a silent agreement as Axel pressed against Roxas' shoulders, as Roxas let himself be guided back to lie flat on the bed. There was a silent agreement of unspoken apologies accepted, of unspoken matters put aside – like Axel ignoring him staunchly in bed, his increasingly frequent depressive episodes leaving Roxas small and hopeless. Put aside but not forgotten: Roxas could not possibly forget all of this. Even now, when Axel bent down to kiss him, there was the painfully obvious apology as heavy repentance over his treatment of Roxas sitting in his eyes; there was the unskilled touch of lips on lips, the awkward bumping of a nose into a cheek. Still Roxas breathed heavily, stared open-mouthed at the ceiling. His mind was blank, and he felt nineteen all over again: dizzy with love and lust, high on the so potent drug that was Axel's touch, so anxious and sick in his excitement of doing anything wrong for the first time. Volumes of long-denied need translated into the burn of Axel's palm on Roxas' stomach as it brushed over trembling muscles that shifted under skin. Roxas had forgotten how strong Axel looked in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, shoulders broad and chest strong. It was so sinuously alluring when Roxas could fist his hand in long hair and feel wanted in the heated stare of exotically slanted absinthe eyes. Following the taut draw of skin over ribs greedily with his eyes as it fell in a sharp arc to Roxas' stomach, Axel dragged his wet tongue roughly against Roxas' length. Heat ripped through Roxas in a vicious slash and he shuddered violently, eyes liquid with pleasure as he arched his back and clawed with his fingers over Axel's shoulders.

It was difficult and painful, re-learning old-trodden paths anew. It was painful to be reminded of the distance the last months had brought; painful to have to re-learn it anew at all, to be shown it in every shy glance, in every stalling, unsure touch.

However, there was the knowledge that it was worth it: so very much worth it. The darkness vanished from Roxas' sight when Axel kissed each of his knuckles softly, when Axel licked over his lips, when he held his hot cheek against Roxas' feverish one. There was always a dawn after the blackest night and Roxas, exhausted and sleepy, traced the subtle shades of Axel's curves highlighted orange in the light of the bedside lamp with his eyes.

The darkness vanished entirely from Roxas' sight when the impossible, simple intimacy of Axel's fluttering eyelashes against his skin overwhelmed him and tore a sob out of his throat.

It didn't matter when they'd last kissed, last touched. Roxas knew this now. Holding Axel's face in his hands, pressing countless kisses on Axel's cheeks, chin, lips—Roxas was helpless to the confessions spilling from his lips, to the thousand I love you's he'd swallowed all those months. Axel's tears were scorching hot, and Roxas kissed his self-hatred away, tasted salt on his tongue as he pressed himself against Axel as closely as possible until he could not discern where his skin ended, and Axel's began. Axel's hold was tight, like he was afraid Roxas would leave.

Roxas realised that as long as they had each other, Axel would always return to where he was meant to be. He would always return to him, fight his way through the fiercest storm, through night and dawn, through dark and light – and Roxas would be there, waiting for him to pour all the love he could give into Axel's cold chest until it was no longer cold. There was a place in the world for everyone, and Axel's was right here, by Roxas' side.


End file.
